In the world of
fiction, there are dozens of well-known
characters with blue skin. X-Men's Mystique,
Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan, the Na'vi from
Avatar, and many more. But real people don't
come in blue, or do they? Well, according to
firsthand accounts, the Fugate family
of Eastern Kentucky, particularly those who lived in
the early to mid 20th century, had naturally blue skin. So, today, we're going to take
a look at some facts and stories about the blue Fugates. But before we get started,
be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel. After that, we'd be much obliged
if you would leave a comment and let us know what other
stories about medical oddities you would like to hear about. OK, we recommend you turn on
some Miles Davis with this one because it is going
to get kind of blue. The story of the
Fugates started in 1820, when the family first
settled in Kentucky. Martin Fugate and his
wife, Elizabeth Smith, came to Troublesome
Creek, an out of the way region of Appalachia. According to family
stories, Martin Fugate, who started life as a French
orphan, was blue himself. This remains unconfirmed,
but even if it wasn't true, his offspring certainly ended
up with an unusual appearance. His son, Zachariah, was
born with blue skin. And so were three more
of their seven children. Due to the isolated
nature of the community, the Fugates' neighbors
knew about the blue people, but few outsiders did. So where did that
blue color come from? Well, according
to later research, the Fugates had an incredibly
rare genetic defect that resulted in a condition
called methemoglobinemia. This meant that
their blood didn't carry as much oxygen
around the body as the blood of an
ordinary person does. That, in turn, makes
the blood much darker, which then causes the
skin of Caucasians to appear blue and their
lips to look purple. In addition, arterial blood
looks chocolate brown, rather than red. People with
methemoglobinemia also have higher levels of
methemoglobin in their blood. They may have 10% to 20%
versus the average person's less than 1%. All that is to say,
the Fugates' very blood was different from that
of their neighbors. Now that's an easy way to say
it than methemoglobinemia. Newsflash, inbreeding is
never really a good thing. In fact, Weird
History viewers who saw our video about
Charles II of Spain might even recall
inbreeding was ultimately responsible for ending
the Hapsburg dynasty and plunging Europe into
a war of succession. And it was inbreeding
that was also responsible for the
Smurf-like appearance of the Fugates of Kentucky. Yes, Martin Fugate and his
bride, Elizabeth Smith, both carried the
same recessive gene that causes methemoglobinemia. It wouldn't have affected
future generations of Fugates if they hadn't married
within the family. The Fugates, however,
lived in an isolated area that had no railroads and
barely any regular roads at all. This geographical situation
greatly limited their options and resulted in a
situation where most family members had little
choice, but to marry cousins who lived nearby. Some of the other
family branches were the Stacys, the Richies,
the Smiths, and the Combs. So, for example,
Zachariah Fugate, one of the first known blue
Fugates, married his aunt. One of their sons
married a close cousin. In turn, one of their children
married another cousin. In the end, it made
for a collection of blue individuals
united by one of the most confusing
family trees in history. As one of the family
members, Alva Stacy once quipped to a researcher,
I'm kin to myself. At the end of the
19th century, a man named John Stacy attended church
one Sunday in Eastern Kentucky. He spotted a young woman and
apparently liked what he saw. The two courted, got
married, and had 13 children. That woman was Luna Fugate. And according to lore, she
was the bluest blue Fugate of them all. According to a local nurse,
the bluest Fugate I ever saw was Luna and her kin. Luna was bluish all over. Her lips were as
dark as a bruise. The nurse, who
lived far too early to have seen Nebula in James
Gunn's 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy, added, she was
as blue a woman as I ever saw. Interestingly
enough, Stacy himself refused to say whether
his beloved wife was blue. Methemoglobinemia can
cause developmental delay and seizures, but
the Fugates seemed to get lucky in this respect. Despite the intense
appearance of their blue skin and purple lips, none
of the family members suffered poor health
or lived in pain. The condition had only
a cosmetic effect, though the family did endure a
good deal of psychological pain due to their outsider status. Many of the family
lived to a ripe old age, with Luna Stacy
bearing 13 children before passing away at 84. In the early 1960s, the
case of the blue Fugates was brought to the
attention of Dr. Madison Cawein, a hematologist at a
University of Kentucky Medical clinic. Intrigued by what
he heard, Cawein began tromping around the
hills looking for blue people, eager to learn more
about the Fugates. During his search
for the family, he ran into a nurse named
Ruth Pendergrass, who had some firsthand experience
with the blue people. According to
Pendergrass, she had once been working at the
County Health Department when a blue woman came in
asking for a blood test. Pendergrass, who believed
the woman was having a heart attack, was terrified
by what she saw. I just knew that
patient was going to die right there in
the health department. The blue woman, on the other
hand, wasn't scared at all. She simply told Pendergrass that
her family was the blue Combs, who lived up on Ball Creek. She was a sister to one
of the Fugate women. Pendergrass joined
Cawein in his hunt. And before too long, they
met two of the Fugates, as well as some blue members of
the Combs and Richie families. After interviewing
the Fugates, Cawein concluded their blood must
be missing a crucial enzyme. To trigger the blood's
natural processes, the doctor decided to inject
the affected family members with methylene blue, a dye. Injecting blue
people with blue dye to try and normalize
their appearance might seem counterintuitive,
but it worked. In fact, the cosmetic
results were nearly instant. Talking about the
experience years later, Cawein said the
treated family members were thrilled to see the
blue fade from their skin. For the first time in their
lives, they were pink. The solution really
was that easy. The effects of the
dye were temporary, but Cawein supplied the Fugates
with methylene blue tablets to take every day. The Fugates' blue skin was
more than just startling. It was also a clear
sign the family had practiced intermarriage. As time went on and people
began to discover more about the harmful
effects of inbreeding, that blue skin became
even more of a stigma. Given many people's
tendency to be jerks, their neighbors were not
always kind to the Fugates. In response, the
family, understandably, withdrew even more from
their tiny community. By the time Dr. Madison
Cawein contacted the family in the 1960s, it was
clear they were all too used to being outcasts. They wouldn't come
into the waiting room. You could tell how much it
bothered them to be blue. The Fugates continued to have
large families over the years, with some children still born
in varying shades of blue. Coal mining and the railroads
brought new people to Kentucky, and the available gene
pools started to expand. In a move that turned out to
be best for everyone involved, the Fugates eventually
began marrying outside of their family. After some time, the
recessive gene receded. The last known blue
Fugate was born in 1975. Benjy Stacy looked
almost purple at birth. The bizarre sight alarmed
his doctor so much, they immediately had him
rushed to the University of Kentucky Medical Center
for a blood transfusion. But his grandmother
shared the story of her family's unusual
lineage, and the medical staff concluded he had
simply inherited the Fugates' rare condition. The blue faded from Stacy's
skin over the next few weeks, though his lips
and nails continued to turn purple when
he got cold or angry. So you're probably wondering
whether more blue Fugates could ever be born in the future. Well, the answer
is a firm maybe. The decline of inbreeding
certainly makes it less likely that the recessive gene
causing the condition would crop up again. However, it still exists in
many members of the family. That means there's
a non-zero chance that future generations of the
Fugates could have blue skin. That being said, the likelihood
of it happening again is very small. As you might imagine,
the Fugate family isn't exactly in
a rush to discuss their history of inbreeding in
the bizarre genetic legacy it created for them. ABC News did publish a story
on the blue Fugates in 2012, but when they tried to follow
up with the surviving family members, they reported being
unable to reach anyone. At least one Fugate
descendant is believed to still live
in the Appalachia area. And various other families
with the condition are scattered
throughout the region. But the gene pool that
created the situation has significantly
dispersed over the years. You almost never see a patient
with methemoglobinemia, admits a hematologist from
the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Ayalew Tefferi. The blue men of Lurgan,
not to be confused with the intermittently popular
Las Vegas act, the Blue Man Group, were Irish brothers
who, in 1942, were treated with ascorbic acid
and sodium bicarbonate by Dr. James Deeny. The procedure worked,
at least temporarily, as the brothers' skin began
changing to a normal shade over the course of 12 days. They would be Ireland's
last case of blue people. In his autobiography,
Dr. Deeny also mentions a decent
countrywoman living in the middle of
County Tyrone, who had a family with
some blue children. According to Deeny,
the woman noticed that when she fed
the children cabbage, they became nice and pink. When she stopped, they
became blue again. So they got plenty
of cabbage to eat. Now we suspect there may be
a portion of our audience who thinks it would be pretty
sweet to have blue skin. And why not? Some beloved pop culture
icons have been blue-- Cookie Monster
from Sesame Street, Sulley from Monsters,
Inc, and Genie from Aladdin, just
to name a few. Well, we've got some good-ish
news for those viewers. Though the Fugates ended up
passing down a recessive gene through generations,
ensuring the continuation of blue-tinged skin
and oxygen deficient blood for generations,
there is a way to acquire methemoglobinemia
without the gene. When protective enzymes that
exist in healthy red blood cells are exposed to
oxidizing drugs, nitrates, or other chemicals, they
can infiltrate the enzymes and increase
methemoglobin levels. Certain foods can
cause this in infants, but exposure to chemicals
like benzocaine and dapsone generally triggers
the condition. Of course, there
are some downsides. This same exposure typically
leads to physical symptoms like shortness of breath,
headache, dizziness, and loss of consciousness. A small price to pay to look
like Sonic the Hedgehog, or maybe not. So what do you think? Who is your favorite
blue character? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
